Arkansas River Rafting

Fantastic weather

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 21:22:01 +0000

We have been experiencing a very warm spring…sunny and 82 degrees today as I write this. Great weather for rafting. So far it has been very busy for the early season and I am certain that the weather is the reason for all the early trips. Right now we are only doing the 1/2 day in the Royal Gorge and the 1/2 day in Bighorn Canyon, which are our two most popular trips. Noon is check-in time daily but as of this coming weekend – May 19th – we are up for anything…full days, overnighters…most of our trips will be available. Bring sunscreen! Tony – WAO

Royal Gorge is open all season!

admin — Tue, 01 May 2012 20:37:21 +0000

This year snowpack is below average and rafting in the Royal Gorge should be available all season long. As opposed to last year, when we were shut out of the Royal Gorge for 6 weeks due to very high flows. Right now the river is running a low to moderate flow, but about twice the volume we had when we opened for the season about 10 days ago. So far the guides that are here are trying to get on the river often and are having a blast. The weather has been fantastic for rafting in the Royal Gorge or Bighorn Canyon. Last year at this time we had yet to run a single boat…the weather was not as nice as this spring. We’re off to a great start and can’t wait for runoff to start soon, probably in the next couple weeks. Late May and early June will likely be the best flows for Royal Gorge rafting this year. We are confident that flows will remain good through July due to releases from upstream reservoirs as part of the annual Flow Management Program, which is designed to augment the river well into the rafting season and keep conditions good for rafting. The Arkansas River where we operate is the only river in Colorado that offers anything like the Flow Program and we are very fortunate. Tony – WAO

OPEN for 2012

admin — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 21:14:10 +0000

We are open for the 2012 season. Yesterday we took a High School band – 26 kids - in Bighorn Canyon and everyone had a great time rafting on the river. They were all really nice kids and one of the adult leaders is a guy we know from a school group where he used to work that has rafted with us in the past. We also ran a boat in the Royal Gorge and that went well also. Royal Gorge rafting is a blast at any water level. Today we took some folks on a Royal Gorge rafting trip – two boats. We also ran a “training” boat with a few guides that basically just wanted to go rafting. The weather has been great and even though the water is low – and it always is this early in the rafting season – it’s been really fun. Last year, as I recall, the weather was not that great early and we didn’t even run a trip in April. So we’re off to a good start and an early start. Bookings are up and spirits are high. I find it interesting that guides are gung-ho in April but under the same circumstances in August it is difficult to get them to go do something fun…nobody wants to go rafting unless they are getting paid. We own 3 “duckies” which are inflatable kayaks, and the reason I bought them is so guides, particularly our younger guides, can go “play” at times when they might be on “stand-by” and not end up getting a paid trip. They are allowed to take a duckie along with one of the trips just for fun. I encourage them to do stuff like that. Right now there are only have 4 or 5 guides in the boatyard at this point and we are running boats with light loads so it doesn’t take much to fill us to capacity this early. Soon though, they will begin the annual “trickle in” one by one until the first week of June when the last of the guides are anticipated to arrive. We hired a couple extra guides for this season due to bookings being up and with low snowpack I would guess that by July 4th we will be at levels that we often see from the Flow Program – which are dam releases designed to keep us going. In years like this year when we have more moderate flows we often run lighter loads which means it takes more guides to accomplish a busy day than in years – like last year – when the river is very high and we can put 7 or even 8 customers per raft. We will ultimately have about 15 guides this year, which is about right for a busy season since we have 16 boats that we use for trips with customers…we also have the duckies, a giant 16′ Avon Pro that we use mostly for “private” trips in places like the Grand Canyon or Deso/Gray Canyon. There is also an old, beat up boat that loses air from the floor that I gave to the guides several years ago to use for whatever reason. Finally we have a little “Cat Boat” that is a one-man oar boat for fishing. Tony – WAO

Spring rafting conditions

admin — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 20:42:21 +0000

Spring rafting – In our part of Colorado – the Royal Gorge region – we enjoy probably the mildest climate in the State. That’s not to say it doesn’t get cold or snow, it does both! However this year we have enjoyed record warm temperatures in March and we have already had days that hit 80 degrees. The past few days have been cool and we have seen a small amount of rain. The point is, it can be unpredictable and the weather can change very quickly. In order to be fully prepared for a rafting trip this time of year, you need to prepare for anything. So bring your “river shorts” but also have along things that can layer. Wool sock are an excellent way to keep the chill off your feet whether wearing sandals, sneakers or river booties. Jeans or hoodies…or anything made of cotton is just wrong. Once these items get wet they act as an evaporative cooler, as your body tries to dry with wet cotton on, it draws the heat from your core making you colder than if you were wearing nothing! Fleece, wool or anything that will help keep you dry like Goretex is the way to go. A fleece vest or jacket is a great item to have along as it is easy to take on & off plus it keeps you warm even though it may be wet. Our guides all have a fleece jacket along when they are on the river even though we folks see them getting ready for a trip they often aren’t wearing it or anything that is appropriate for being on the river at that time. It confuses people when we get them all dressed up for the river, then they walk out to the boatyard only to see a couple of guides wearing – jeans & a hoodie! But trust me, they aren’t going to be dress inappripriately once they are on the water. Guides also have learned that the best way to keep the chill off is to wear things that are designed to keep you dry. They also know that if they end up in an oar boat, which is very strenuous work, less is best. “Less is best” also applies if it is warm, as nothing dries quicker than skin. While most folks that go rafting with us don’t have all the high tech, rafting specific gear our guides have, we can outfit you in stuff that will help a lot if the weather is cool. Wetsuits, splash jackets and river booties are available in our office and you can get those items for a nominal fee before your trip. Having a hat – wool or fleece - is also a really good trick. So if you bring just a couple items with you, wool socks, an appropriate hat and a fleece jacket, we can dress you up for your Royal Gorge Rafting trip to be impervious to the conditions! Tony – WAO

Over the River Approved!

admin — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 20:13:20 +0000

March 27th 2012 – Today the Fremont County commissioners APPROVED the Over the River project by the artist Christo. This is HUGE NEWS around here and is the final real hurdle to clear for work to actually begin for the installation of this much anticipated art project that has been 20 years in the planning process (with 3 more years to go). There is still a permit that needs to be obtained from Chaffee County, but most have been assuming that Chaffee County has merely been waiting to see what will happen here before beginning the permit process there. I believe that Chaffee County, where there will be much less impact from the project, is mostly in favor and will approve the request without nearly as much controversy and bloviating as went on around here. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that Chaffee County will approve the project very quickly and quietly. The other two permits that must be obtained are from the State Patrol and Colorado Department of Transportation and those will be just a formality once the traffic management plan is complete. So, it appears that Over the River is actually going to happen during the 2nd and 3rd weeks of August 2015. Once we have exact dates we will post options on our website for trips that we will make available as well as prices and check-in times. We are very excited to see this project finally gaining significant support and approval. It will probably be the biggest event to ever happen around here. Visitation during the two-week display of the art project is expected to be over 300,000 people! Those with their own boats that may be planning to raft under the project should check with the rangers as there will be a permit process to gain access to the river and not just the pay-the-tube and put your boat on the water system that we are all used to. You will need to formally apply to the Park to get a permit. Tony – WAO

Getting started

admin — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 19:46:53 +0000

Although Kathy & I have been working quite a bit since January 1st, we are just getting started in some ways. We have our first trip of the season booked for April 20th, which is about a week or so earlier than we normally open. This is a good thing…we like opening for the season early! Enthusiasm around here is always pretty high, but during the early season guides and other staff are particularly revved up. Once the ski areas close, guides abound around here plus we have a few local guides. Those circumstances make it fairly easy for me to put early trips on the water. Getting all our equipment and our property ready can present challenges. Our property is big and it seems as though there is always something that needs to be done. We have created a schedule of preparations over the years, so there is actually a system. Boats, all the stuff that goes with them, frames, oars, med kits, camping gear, lifejackets, wetsuits and of course, vehicles and trailers. Howard, my main helper and our lead driver & I devote most of April as “Vehicle Month”. All buses, vans and trailers must pass a very involved inspection required by DOT. We have a theory as well, that all vehicles and trailers need to be ready to go for 100 days straight. More difficult than one might think. We spend a bunch of money, time and effort to get ready and stay ready in this regard. Everyone who knows me has heard me say – “Transportation, not rafting, is the single most expensive, complicated and potentially dangerous thing we do here.” Amazingly, it is not something we get many questions about from customers or potential customers. I would guess that I get 1000 questions about rafting to every one I get about transportation or shuttles. Strange. Tony – WAO

Raft Guide training

admin — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 18:42:49 +0000

This time of year I get a lot of inquiries from those who want to become a raft guide. We do “rookie” guide training some years, other years, like 2012, we have enough returning guides that we don’t have a need for a bunch of rookies running around here. We also do a lot of what I call “experienced guide training” here. This is for those who are guides at WAO but may not be familiar with a certain trip, such as Browns Canyon. Some guides are familiar with everything we do at all water flows. Others, some of our younger guides, may be used to “high water” but haven’t seen a lot of lower flows. Early in the season or late in the season, at flows belows say 500 cfs, some guides need additional training to become competent at low water. We have had years where several guides had never seen the river above say 3500 cfs, which requires additional training at those type of high flows. Then there are those who aspire to become guides in the Royal Gorge, which is another threshold altogether. Although they may be solid, experienced guides, they have not yet certified to take trips in the Gorge. The State Park requires 2 training trips with a qualified instructor aboard (another certification) and one with an instructor and “live” customers to serve as a certification trip. At WAO we require as many as 20 training trips in the Gorge (at the very least a dozen) before you can check out or take a certification trip. Our requirements are that you always know where you are in there, know all the places you should NEVER go, and of course, know the “line” or the common route through the many big rapids in the Gorge. This takes time and several trips through, the first few with someone who already knows all these things. I also tell aspiring Gorge guides that our senior staff must feel comfortable with you on a trip and that the guide himself or herself must feel comfortable and confident in the Gorge. It’s fairly easy to spot when someone lacks confidence or doesn’t know where they are. Rookie guides are tough here because we usually only need a couple when we need any at all and it doesn’t make sense to train two people, so we usually train 5 or 6 – my favorite number is 5 – and then pick the 2 or 3 best and offer them a job. Plus, we have to send qualified instructors with them to teach and to babysit them through the learning curve, which is steep. This is time comsuming and costly. In addition to river time there is classroom time which I am involved in directly and usually have little time for, but I make it happen regardless. I tell trainees all the time that there is a big difference between becoming a good boatman and being a good guide. A good boatman is simply one who can effectively get the boat down the river without frequent incident. A good guide is something else altogether. I have a saying – “All good guides are good boatmen, but not all good boatmen are good guides.” Tony – WAO

Over the River – Christo

admin — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:22:11 +0000

The most recent development with the proposed “Over the River” art project is the timeline for the actual display of the artwork has been delayed…again. This is a bit disappointing, but if this is approved by Fremont County my guess is that this really will be the last delay. So, the project is scheduled for the first couple weeks in August of 2015. This change is prompted by several factors, most obviously that Fremont County is dragging their feet making a decision. From what I understand, since the public hearings there has been no movement by either the County Commissioners or those involved in preparing the Event Management Plan (EMP), which will spell out, in detail, traffic management, safety and the way things will operate on the river, as far as all of us are concerned, the outfitters. I am on a committee, known as the Rationing & Agreement Advisory Committee (RAAC) at Colorado Parks & Wildlife or more specifically the AHRA which is the managing agency on the river for commercial outfitters. As chairman of this committee for the past 9 years, I will be very involved in the EMP for the on-river activites, for both commercial outfitters and private boaters – those who own their own rafting or kayaking equipment and recreate on the river without using an outfitter to provide their trip. I have been suggesting to the managers at the AHRA for some time that we should begin this process, but so far my advice has fallen on deaf ears. At our last meeting, before this most recent delay, the RAAC managed to gain more info than we have at past meetings, at which we have been stonewalled. This river is managed by several lengthy documents – the Arkansas is the most regulated river in North America other than the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. We have the “Management Plan” which looks like a book, the “Rationing Plan”, the Special Use Agreement – which is the permit are commercial operators have – and several associated “riders”. There will be “rationing” during this event, all sections of the river have some sort of limiting carrying capacity and there are days we are already limited in several sections, such as the Royal Gorge. So the RAAC will be directly involved in determining those limits as well as where outfitters are allowed to be and when with regard to the access points we use for put-in and take-out. There will also be private boater permitting during the event. One of the big issues with the Over the River event is the public demand to see some of these plans, with have yet to be developed. I find it difficult to spend a huge amount of time and incur brain damage for any event that is not actually approved to go forward. If the Fremont County people decide NOT to approve the necessary permit, all that time and brain cells will have been wasted. In the case of all the agency people, Christo is paying the freight for employees to do this important work. In the case of myself & others involved, we are all volunteers and are not compensated for our time and efforts. I am expecting a sudden sense of urgency among the agencies involved now that these types of issues have been brought forth. On the other hand with another year until the project is complete and the display is ready to happen, they may slow this process down as they are government bureaucrats and are best at putting things off. Tony – WAO

Christo hearings

admin — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:06:32 +0000

Yesterday, February 1st, I attended the hearings for the “Special Use Permit” needed by the Christo team to move forward with the project, along with several other rafting outfitters in the area, plus what seemed like half the county. I spoke on behalf of our outfitters association for about 5 minutes – we are obviously in support of this event collectively, although we do have a couple people in our membership who are either opposed or ambivalent about it. The hearings began with a presentation from Christo and his team, which was interesting and very informative. The biggest complaint about the project is the amount of traffic it could generate, and noboby will be more affected by that than all of us that are trying to run our shuttles each day of the event. Most of those who spoke in objection live in the canyon where this will take place. I completely understand the concerns…it will be inconvenient, no doubt. A lot of what was said was a bit over the top though, and some of it was just plain ridiculous. There is another hearing tonight, in a town called Cotopaxi, which is in the middle of the canyon. There was no indication from the Fremont County Commission as to when they will make a decision…so now we wait to see what will happen. I believe if Fremont County grants the permit, this project will happen. The other county – Chaffee, will be impacted and must also give their blessing to the event, but I think that one is very likely to be approved. Tony – WAO

2012 WAO Guides

admin — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:17:49 +0000

This year it looks as though most of our guides will be returning. There will also be a couple of guides that will be here from our past. In other words, they worked here at one point in time, left to do something else, and are now coming back to be a WAO guide again. We have a very low turnover rate when it comes to our guides here, and there are a few that have been here a very long time. Dave – or Eman as he is known – is our most senior guide and has been here since 1993 and has around 50,000 “river miles”. When we get our office inspection from the river rangers, who come to check occasionally to be sure we are keeping proper records of our guide staff, I give them very little as it pertains to Dave. First, they all know Dave and realize how long he has been a WAO guide. I also contend that once he hit the 50,000 mile mark, I quit keeping track of him. I show them his updated First aid & CPR cards and we move on. Chris Collins – or as I call him “that damn Collins” – has worked here for as long as Dave, but not as steadily…he once was married and had a “real job” during all that and wasn’t a guide for those few years, and at one point way back when he left to work at another company, but it was an agreeable parting. In fact, a couple of years later we bought that company and ended up with Collins again. He kind of came with the deal as though he was a boat or a Van or some piece of equipment. I believe we have enough guides on our staff already for the upcoming season, which is a bit unusual this early. Not that they don’t all mostly return each year, it’s just getting the commitment from them that typically takes longer. We are very fortunate to not have a bunch of “rookies” and otherwise marginally experienced guides. Our staff is solid, both on and off the river, and we are very proud to say that we feel we have, overall, one of the most experienced group of guides in Colorado.

Tony – WAO